If you’ve spent money on a vacation, the last thing you want to do is spend your time on business calls while you should be relaxing. Many small business owners debate whether to try to put their business on hold or to take it with them. Here are some tips to make your business manageable while you enjoy a much-needed vacation.

Prepare Your Clients

Notify your clients in advance that you will be unavailable while you’re on vacation. If you have clients that procrastinate, inform them of your plans at least seven days in advance. This way, you won’t have to handle any last-minute concerns from your clients as you prepare for your trip.

Tell your clients that you’ll be back 2–3 days after you actually get back from your trip. This will give you time to re-adjust and handle common problems before tackling new ones.

Prepare Your Employees

By Murphy’s law, anything that can breakdown, will breakdown while you’re away. You will need to prepare your employees accordingly. Assign specific problems to specific employees. Connect your service providers with those employees as well. This way, they can handle issues presented without needing any authorization from you.

Set clear guidelines on when it’s appropriate to contact you. Unless it’s urgent, have them email you briefly summing up what happened and what you need to know before returning to the office.

These are just some of the ways you can “business proof” your vacation. I encourage you to dig deeper so you can recharge and make the most of your personal holiday. If you still have the business bug even on vacation, remember you have an abundance of business articles you can read with your AFEUSA membership.